


kill your darlings, kill them dead

by firstaudrina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, F/F, guest appearance by bucky, some blood and violence but nothing excessive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1607792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is a slayer gone rogue, and Peggy is the Watcher tasked with bringing her in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kill your darlings, kill them dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rekall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rekall/gifts).



This is how Natasha looks when they meet:

Strands of red hair stick to the blood on her face, the scrapes on her cheeks. The blood on her split lip is flattering, practically cosmetic. There is a dark bruise on the bridge of her nose that lends shadows to her eyes, which are sharply green, green like grass or springtime. She wears dark, inconspicuous clothing that fits close to her body.

Peggy wears a slim-cut dark brown skirt suit, sensible heels, red lipstick. Her hair is loose around her shoulders but carefully arranged. There is no mistaking her for anyone other than who she is: a person of authority, a woman of position. She studies Natasha with mingled respect and horror. 

"What happened to you?" Peggy asks, a hushed murmur.

Natasha says, "That's none of your concern."

 

*

 

Natasha has been off the map for god knows how long. There are uncertain reports as to the exact date of death of her last Watcher, who had ceased reporting to the Council some time before his passing. Natasha was hard to find, too good at slipping into the shadows. It is her job, after all. Natasha exists to slide into the shadows and kill what she finds there.

The first thing Peggy does is bring Natasha back to her apartment so she can dress Natasha's wounds.

Natasha's very green eyes travel over the beige walls and clean corners of Peggy's flat. "Nice place," she remarks.

"It'll do alright," Peggy says briskly as she pulls a chair from the small table and pats it lightly to instruct Natasha to sit. The apartment and furniture were provided for her, and are neither are particularly to her taste, not that it matters. Peggy doesn't care much for her surroundings when she has a job to do. "I'll just be a minute."

She goes to retrieve the first aid kit from the bathroom and finds Natasha still wandering when she returns, touching the little decorations on the mantelpiece, picking up a photograph. Natasha taps a nail against the glass, leaving a smear of blood across the face of the man in the photograph. She does not turn round when she speaks. "Who's this?"

"No one," Peggy says, perhaps more sharply than she ought to. "Please do have a seat, Natasha."

Natasha gives Peggy a leveled, if blank, look but drifts over to sit down. She allows Peggy to clean her many wounds, wrap her in bandages. Natasha has quite a lot of scars, probably more beneath her clothes that Peggy cannot see. 

With a clucking, reproachful tone that Peggy knows must've come from her mother, she asks, "What were you doing for wound care before this?"

There are so many small, jaggedly healed injuries that clearly went uncared for. Natasha had had nothing on her person except weapons, and she had been living essentially on the street. 

"Healing," Natasha says. "I do it fast enough." 

She pulls away from Peggy's careful hands soon after, slinging her bag of weaponry up onto her shoulder. She refuses Peggy's invitation to stay the night on the couch. 

"But where are you going to go?" Peggy asks. 

"Hunting," Natasha answers shortly, and she is already gone.

 

*

 

They have not had a slayer so difficult in years.

Peggy thinks perhaps that is why she was assigned to Natasha. It might be unkind to think her colleagues only want to set her up for failure, but unkind does not necessarily mean untrue. The Council is full of men who look at her with doubt in their eyes despite the fact that Peggy has clocked more field time than any of them. So they assigned her to the rogue slayer, ostensibly as a reward for her good work. Peggy knows the truth. They want her to fail at bringing Natasha to heel so they can pat themselves on the back. 

There are scant details in Natasha's file; even the year of her birth is in question. She was called much later than most slayers, and has lived longer too. The only compliment that can be paid to Natasha is that she is very good at her job.

But Peggy is too. 

Peggy goes out to the cemetery and into the mausoleum where she knows a clutch of vampires sleep. She dispatches two before she allows them to briefly overpower her, and her reward is a telltale toss of red hair as Natasha comes to her rescue. 

"That was stupid," Natasha says afterwards. "And an obvious ploy."

"Nevertheless it worked," Peggy says with a half-smile, brushing vampire ash from her skirt. "You know, Ms. Romanoff, it would save us both rather a lot of trouble if you would allow me to help you."

Natasha brushes past her. "Seems to me I help you. I don't get so much out of it."

Peggy knows better than to touch Natasha without permission, so she only quickens her step to catch up. "You need training, information. And on a more basic level, you clearly need physical care that you refuse to provide for yourself."

Natasha turns abruptly to face Peggy; the spark of anger in her eyes is the first clear emotion Peggy has seen her display. "I have taken care of myself my entire life," she says. "The only thing the Watchers' Council has ever given me is a dead friend and a headache."

Peggy watches that inscrutable face closely. "Friend," she repeats. "You mean your Watcher, Fury. You call him a friend?"

Natasha has a way of reacting without reacting: a minute contraction of pupils, a slight intake of breath, the tiniest pursing of lips. Peggy doubts she would notice were she not looking for it. "You don't know as much about me as you seem to think," Natasha says.

Peggy arches an eyebrow. "I could say the very same to you, Ms. Romanoff." There is a beat of tense silence before she adds, "I only want to help."

"I told you," Natasha says, "I don't want your help."

 

*

 

Nearly a month later Natasha appears on Peggy's doorstep with a stake through her shoulder. Blood has soaked into her dark clothing. As Peggy gapes for an unattractive minute, one pendulous drop falls and hits the toe of her shoe.

"My goodness," she says, ushering Natasha inside. "You should – I ought to call an ambulance, that looks –"

"It's nothing," Natasha says dismissively but breathlessly as she drops into the same chair she sat in before, all those weeks ago. She yanks the stake free, loosing a fresh torrent of blood. "Looks worse than it is."

"I sincerely doubt that." Peggy hears that motherly disapproval in her voice again and tries to tamp it down. "I don't have the materials to deal with –"

"Got a needle and thread?" Natasha is carefully peeling off her shirt, just barely wincing. "I can sew it up myself."

Peggy rushes to get towels for the wound, vaguely bemoaning that the rug is probably destroyed. "What about nerve damage, _Natasha_ ," she scolds. "What about –"

"My body was made to withstand a lot," Natasha says with impatience. "I'm not interested in lectures. You're not my keeper."

"I am, actually," Peggy says. She rolls up her sleeves, sets a basin of warm water on the table, and commences cleaning Natasha's wound – which is not, actually, all that deep, though it is painfully ragged. "I am responsible for you whether either of us likes it." 

Natasha watches her with calculating eyes that betray little in the way of pain. She must have experienced quite a lot of it to be so barely fazed. "I suppose your bedside manner isn't too bad."

Peggy smiles just a little. "I'm afraid the only thing I have for the pain is some rather decent red wine," she says. "Would you like it?"

Natasha shakes her head. "I'm fine."

Concern creases Peggy's brow. "Natasha. There is a very good chance some real damage has been caused. You need to see a doctor."

"Peggy," she says, a mocking mirror of Peggy's tone. "I have been in a lot worse trouble than this. Could've killed me, and he didn't. In a week I'll be in working order again."

Peggy sincerely doubts that, but before she can say so, Natasha's words register. Not just her words – her inflection, the way she said _he_ with a kind of familiarity.

"Did you know who – whoever did this?"

Natasha does not make eye contact as she eases a towel away from her shoulder. Perhaps she is kicking herself for giving something away; of course with Natasha it is impossible to tell what transpires in her brain during her silences. Finally she offers, "He knows how to strike to kill. Hitting me clean in the shoulder wasn't a mistake."

There is something in her voice that hints at more, at deeper meanings.

Peggy takes that in and then asks, measured, "What is he?"

Not _who_ but _what_ , because she wouldn't expect an answer to the former and already knows the answer to the latter. Sure enough, after a beat Natasha confirms, "A vampire. With some enhancements." 

Peggy's mind is spinning at what _that_ could mean. "A vampire you know."

"His people killed my fr– my Watcher," Natasha says. Together they begin the stitching and dressing of the wound, Peggy wincing a little if only because Natasha doesn't, and won't. 

"You've been looking for them," Peggy says gently in realization. Revenge: a simple motive liable to get Natasha killed. 

"Biding my time," Natasha corrects. Finally she looks at Peggy, the color of her eyes once again so startlingly clear. "This is not me asking for help."

"Only if we're being absolutely technical," Peggy says. "For the record, this is me offering it anyway."

They hold each other's gaze for a moment, and it strikes Peggy that Natasha is truly exceptionally beautiful and exceptionally intimidating, a woman with power coiled tight inside her waiting for release. She has yet to really see Natasha fight, but she can imagine that it would be impressive and deadly and elegant. 

"I am not your enemy," Peggy tells her. 

Natasha has been deemed uncontrollable by men who like to hold leashes tight, and Peggy understands something about that. 

"We'll see, won't we?" Natasha says.

 

*

 

The first attempt at eradication goes badly.

Natasha refuses to wait until she is totally healed, and she is as unforthcoming as anyone Peggy has ever met. She doesn't tell Peggy where they are going or how many vampires to expect, only giving one warning when Peggy asks: be prepared for anything.

They end up in an abandoned building at the edge of town – a large redbrick factory both cavernous and echoing. Natasha is silent and wary as she makes her way across the floor; Peggy tries to do the same with as much skill, but unfortunately has to admit this is one area where she is outclassed. 

There are maybe thirty vampires, and none of them are the vampires Natasha is after.

Later, limping dusty and bloodied back to her flat, Peggy categorizes the damage: bruises, blood scrapes, a ruined skirt that she rather liked, three broken fingers, and a black eye. Natasha tore open the wound on her shoulder. 

"You are careless," Peggy hisses. "And stubborn. You're going to get both of us killed if you continue in this manner. Don't you value your life at all?"

She expects a sarcastic comment or pointed silence, and gets neither; with a quickness that knocks the breath out of Peggy's lungs, Natasha shoves her against the wall outside her apartment door. "Your people see me as a weapon and little else," Natasha says, voice cold and sharp. "When one slayer gets rusty, they just trot out another. They replace us like it's nothing. They don't value a single girl, not one. They would be glad if I died because the next one might be more malleable. My life is my mission and we both know I am expected to die doing it, so why should I care one way or another?"

It is the most she has ever said to Peggy in one breath. Peggy has training for moments like this, speeches tailor-made for different kinds of girls. She could preach the sanctity of all life, or bemoan that they are all soldiers in an unwinnable war. But Natasha would see through all of it; most of the girls before her probably saw through it all too.

"You were dealt a bad hand," Peggy says finally. "Nothing will make it alright. But it is the hand you were dealt."

Natasha eyes her suspiciously and does not ease up on the pressure keeping Peggy pinned to the wall.

"You obviously care about _something_ if you are so insistent upon your revenge," Peggy continues. "You cared for Fury. You want his loss to mean something. You won't be able to avenge him if you keep going in half-cocked."

"We're doing this my way, or I'm doing it alone," Natasha warns.

"You are impossible," Peggy huffs. "You must learn to trust me a little. I can do more than look good in a suit. Much more."

For the first time, a tiny smile curls the very corner of Natasha's lips. "You do do that very well," she agrees. She steps back. 

Peggy straightens, adjusts her clothes with her good hand, and says, "Right. We can start with you giving me all the information you have."

 

*

 

The coaxing of information turns out to be the most difficult task yet. Natasha is the very definition of unforthcoming and years of playing her cards close has turned secrecy into an ingrained habit. The story comes out in bits and pieces that Peggy must try to turn into a whole. This is what she knows:

Natasha was not present for Fury's death. 

The vampires behind it belong to some kind of organization, or cult.

The vampire who put a stake through her shoulder might be personally responsible for Fury's death.

Natasha is least likely to want to talk about that vampire.

"You're protecting him," Peggy decides. "He might have killed your friend, and yet you're protecting him."

There is a map spread out over Peggy's dining room table and Natasha is leaning over it trying to figure out the vampires' hideout. Natasha does not look up; she viciously crosses out one cemetery. "I protect myself."

Peggy arches an eyebrow, ignoring that. "Need I remind you he is a _vampire_?"

"I know what he is," Natasha says, perhaps a touch snappishly. Peggy is becoming better at differentiating the emotions in her relatively flat voice. 

"You clearly have some kind of feeling about him," Peggy presses. She hopes Natasha doesn't throw something at her head; she prepares to duck if this is the case. 

But Natasha doesn't, of course. She only looks at Peggy with those keen eyes. "I feel that if he gets in my way again, he'll be dust." 

She probably means it, but somehow it lacks conviction.

 

*

 

Before they can come for the vampires, the vampires come for them.

It's only a handful, but they are clearly of great power. Peggy is caught up in combat with a female vampire with long, dark hair and impressive strength, so she cannot keep an eye on Natasha at first. The vampire nearly has her teeth in Peggy's throat before she is dispatched with the stake hidden up Peggy's sleeve. It is through the resultant drifting ash that Peggy sees who Natasha is fighting and finally understands what she'd meant by _enhancements_.

The vampire Natasha is struggling with is tall, dark-haired, dressed head to toe in black leather – and his arm is made of metal that shines even in the dull light, powerful enough that with one strike he sends Natasha halfway across the street. 

But perhaps more shocking than a technologically enhanced vampire is the man's face. Peggy knows that man's face. She hesitates, dangerously frozen in place, and then says, "James?" He turns, blue eyes blank. "James Buchanan Barnes?"

Before he can answer, Natasha has launched herself at him and Peggy has another two to deal with. She kills one; the other is wrenched away and beheaded by a heavily-breathing Natasha. She pulls Peggy to her feet almost angrily, and it is then Peggy realizes they are alone. 

"Is that him, was that your vampire?" Peggy asks in a rush, turning round to check that no others are coming. The street is quiet and empty as a ghost town, no sign that moments ago there was a wild struggle. 

"Stop talking about him as though he belongs to me," Natasha says. "What was that you called him?"

"James –" Peggy says. But no one really ever called him that, not even her. "Bucky," she amends, "He – he looked like a man I once knew, the friend of my –" She clears her throat suddenly, faltering. "Of a friend of mine."

Natasha wraps her arms around herself, gaze scanning the shadows between houses, between trees. "Before he was…what he is now."

"It couldn't possibly be him," Peggy says. "The man I knew is dead."

"So is that man," Natasha says. 

"Yes, I suppose." Pushing has yet to get her anywhere, but Peggy can't help adding, "Your relationship with him is personal."

Natasha glances back over her shoulder once and then begins walking, presumably back to the flat. "I knew him when I was young."

They know nothing about Natasha before she was called. She was twenty years old, or maybe twenty-four depending on which supposed birth year is true, whereas most girls came to them anywhere from fourteen up, and she was already skilled at combat, already deadly, already trouble. They believe she originated in Russia but they found her in Iran and she spoke English with a flat, affectless American accent. She gave no details on her own, of course. 

Back in the flat, Peggy picks up the thread of the conversation as though it had never faltered. "Did you love him?"

"Love is for children," Natasha says. 

"You said you knew him as a child," Peggy counters, eyebrow arching.

The look Natasha gives her then is almost amused, almost fond. "I was never a child," she says. "Not really."

"You are very melodramatic," Peggy tells her, waiting to see if she will be rewarded with –

The corner of Natasha's mouth lifts upwards. "Comes with the territory." Her gaze flicks away and back, seeming to contemplate something before she offers, "I wasn't a child. I knew him before I was called. I didn't know what he was then."

Peggy wonders if they were lovers, or only friends, or perhaps something else entirely – it's hard to tell without knowing something of Natasha's life before. "When did you find out?"

Natasha seems to sigh. "Too late." 

 

*

 

"Here is what I know," Natasha says.

She knows Fury discovered something before his death, was consumed by some research he never fully revealed to her. He told her one thing: don't trust anyone, but especially not the Council.

She believes he was not a casualty: somebody hunted him down to try and make his discovery disappear.

"He must've known it wasn't going to end well for him, he left me this before he was killed." Natasha rifles through her bag of weapons for a side pocket and pulls out a folded scrap of paper. She holds it out.

Peggy lays it flat on the table and studies the image sketched out hastily – what looks to be a skull with six curling tentacles beneath it. And one word scrawled, _Hydra_.

"That's their symbol, the vampires," Natasha says. "But I think it runs deeper than just them." She pauses, studying Peggy. "I think maybe they're working with – _for_ the Council."

Peggy is silent, for once. She has spent her entire life preparing to be a Watcher, like her father before her and his father before him. She cannot have given her entire life to something so corrupt, which purports to eradicate evil while secretly using it for their own selfish purposes. To use vampires as mercenaries, to kill one of their own…

"This is no real evidence," Peggy says firmly, though her head is spinning. "This is just a theory – there's no proof."

"No," Natasha agrees. "But I wouldn't trust them if I were you." And of course Natasha has never trusted them, never trusted a group of men who took away the lives of young girls without consent or sympathy. "They don't really need me or you; if we get on their bad side, we're infinitely replaceable." 

"This is mad," Peggy mutters. Her eyes travel over the scrawled symbol, the map where they have spent weeks eliminating potential headquarters. "What if that's true? What then?"

"War," Natasha deadpans, but Peggy doesn't think that's far off.

 

*

 

It happens rather quickly after that.

They have narrowed it down to three possible locations: an underground bunker beneath a mausoleum, another empty factory, or an abandoned house on the edge of town. Any way they slice it, they are unmatched: two women versus countless vampires could never end well, even two women like them.

Natasha turns out to have a plan for that. It involves three grenades.

"Even if it doesn't wipe them out, it'll send a message," Natasha says. 

"You'll destroy any evidence," Peggy warns.

Dryly, Natasha says, "I doubt they'll have Council stationary lying around."

What Natasha is really after is revenge. On a small scale, first: she wants to do away with Fury's killers. On a large scale, next: she wants to take down the Council even if they aren't affiliated with maniacal cult vampires. She wants revenge for her entire life, for every rotten thing in it.

After their explosive plan is carried out, they sift through the wreckage and debris for anything that will give Peggy a sign that Natasha's little theory is correct. There is nothing, of course. The bunker beneath the mausoleum contains only battered jewels and old treasure. In the abandoned house there are only destroyed coffins and furniture. The factory floor bears Hydra's mark in red like blood beneath the inch-thick dust of blighted vampires, but there is nothing there to prove the Council were the ones operating them. 

They also do not find a metal arm amongst the dust, so they know that there is at least one survivor. Peggy tries to determine if Natasha is pleased by this or not, but as usual Natasha reveals very little.

That night, contemplating further plans, they get drunk on a bottle or two of Peggy's relatively decent red wine. Sitting together on Peggy's couch, shoulder to shoulder with glasses in hand, they almost feel like friends.

"Who's the man in the photograph?" Natasha asks. She nods at the framed picture sitting on Peggy's mantle, the one she'd looked at her first night here. 

"It doesn't matter," Peggy mutters.

"You love to play twenty questions," Natasha says. "When I'm the one answering things, anyway."

Peggy sighs. "Oh, alright. His name was Steve."

" _Steve_ ," Natasha repeats meaningfully, and raises her eyebrows in suggestion. "He's pretty cute, kind of skinny though. Who is he?"

Peggy clears her throat and sips her wine and generally puts off speaking with fidgety nonsense until she says, "Someone I loved."

"You don't anymore?" Natasha asks.

"He is no longer around to be loved," Peggy says, and hopes that clinches it. To further distract, she adds, "You know, your – that vampire. Bucky. Or not. He was a friend of my – of Steve. His best friend." 

Natasha is looking down at her glass of wine, full lips pursed thoughtfully. Her hair catches the low, amber light of Peggy's living room, golden orange. "I never knew his real name," she says. "Codename Winter Soldier. That was what I knew."

Peggy's brow creases. "Codename…?"

Natasha glances over. "Codename Black Widow, that was me. KGB." She holds Peggy's gaze like she is daring judgment. "Guess you could say people have been controlling me my whole life."

What Natasha is really after is revenge. 

"I'm sorry," Peggy says gently, aware that it isn't nearly enough. She slots this new information about Natasha into the growing picture in her mind – a mere outline that has now begin to take on real color and shape, a portrait of a girl both angry and alone.

"I'm not interested in apologies," Natasha says. "Nothing to do about it but keep going."

"Yes," Peggy agrees in a murmur, "I've found that."

By now they're both slumped back against the cushions, exhausted, wine glasses cradled in hand and heads tilted towards each other. Natasha is pale in the low-light, a worn out and wan kind of pale like she hasn't seen a full night's sleep in years. She probably hasn't. But even tired and faded she's certainly still beautiful, eyes knowing and lips full. And after a moment of studying each other – which is what they've been doing for weeks, cataloguing the other because that's what they were trained to do – it seems only natural that they should shift a little closer and kiss. 

Peggy cannot recall the last time she kissed someone. In London, surely, and even then it hadn't been anyone who truly mattered; just someone to touch her, reassure her that she was real. Kissing Natasha feels rather the opposite – like Peggy isn't in her skin at all, only vibrating just outside of it.

When they pull apart, Peggy's deep red lipstick has smeared across Natasha's mouth. 

"It's been a long time," Peggy says unthinkingly.

"Since you've been with a woman?" Natasha asks, probably thinking of the framed photo on the mantle.

"No." Peggy finds herself unafraid to touch now, raising gentle fingertips to Natasha's cheek and brushing her hair back. "Since…anyone." Anyone who has mattered.

The smile Natasha gives her then is small and mischievous, but very real. She takes the glasses and sets them on the counter, then slides her hand into Peggy's. "Sounds like you need some practice," she says.

 

*

 

In the morning they lay tangled in the pale blue sheets on Peggy's bed, the only thing in the entire place she picked out herself. Natasha is awake first, of course, and it is unlikely she really slept at all. Her skin is milky in the morning light, hair bright. There is a scar on her shoulder, a scar on her stomach, scars crisscrossing faint over her arms and legs. She looks down at just-waking Peggy with another smile, and Peggy is surprised by how easily Natasha smiles at her now.

"I think we should head for London," Natasha says. "Raise hell. What do you think? You up for it?"

"More than," Peggy says, but at the moment she's only interested in curling her fingers in Natasha's hair, tugging her down for a kiss that means something, for once.


End file.
